I would rather say it like this: All builds mesmer has aren’t viable for raid. However, shatter is the closest one to being viable in raids. Saying your ‘’clones die too quickly’‘, isn’t an argument to it not being viable. Sure they die too fast, that’s why you should never take X illusions trait in raid builds if you go for shatter.
The more clones you got active the lower your average damage of your mind wrack is. Meaning if you would dodge around as backline with staff or GS equiped, you create clones that will most likely stay alive till you bring them close to the enemy, aka using a shatter skill.
Every clone you got active will reduce your damage by +/- 33%. Meaning if you would have 3 clones active your damage of mind wrack you deal with IP will be reduced by +/- 50%. This damage would only get compensated back if you would hit at least 1 clone out of those 3 clones you had active, which is based on a random chance of survival of your clones. I don’t want traits that are based on random chances to have effect, that’s why I find X- dueling a bad trait for raids when using shatter.
I get it, so we’re depending on IP for shatters. The main problem I have with that is we have to invest 30 points just to get our class skill to work. On top of that IP doesn’t work with any of the other shatter based talents (shattered strength, shattered conditions, rending shatter, shattered concentration).
I wish people would just stop pointing to shatter builds (either for support or damage) as examples of balance in WvW. Shatter does not work in high end raids, period. As soon as you get any more than 15 vs 15 shatter is no longer viable because clones don’t last long enough to shatter.
For me it would be enough if the balance team left the Chaos Storm/CS bug as it is. For once raid mesmers actually have a GM trait that is worthwhile building around. Perhaps as someone else said tweak it so that it’s 50% condition 25% daze, 25% stun. But finally having some AoE lockdown (that doesn’t depend on shatter which is useless in raid WvW) to go with our utilities has been a breath of fresh air.
I don’t mind not having super high damage if we can bring some lock down on the flip side, but at the moment we get neither
The problem is the way it was presented. They were dismissive of mesmers in the extreme in the livestream, and that just doesn’t cut it. Honestly I don’t even use DE, but the way balance team approach mesmers, and the results they produce tend to indicate they don’t have a clue.
As has been pointed out Pyro and others have provided stats and constructive posts plenty in the past. They all get ignored. The fact that iWarden, one of the key phantasms is bugged to the point where it’s almost unusable, and there is no fix in sight just isn’t good enough. The fact that the best change they made for the mesmer (the Chaos Storm/CS bug) was a mistake also speaks to the fact that clearly none of the dev team play mesmer. Otherwise how did either of these get past QA; they’re both bugs that are immediately obvious on first use?
The other issue is that any sort of shattering at all depends on having illusions that can make it to their target and proc the shatter effect without dieing. This just doesn’t happen in WvW raids so if you were to really look at this you’d need some mechanic that allowed us to get shatters off without depending on a 30 point trait (IP).
If I were them, I’d just ignore the Mesmer forums till people calmed down a bit and started giving an unbiased, calm and concise criticism of the nerf with as much detail as possible, while also providing a disclaimer that the critic’s personal skills are not to be taken as the absolute standard to base any decisions on.
As opposed to them not ignoring the mesmer forums, which is what they do when precisely?
i played the mes in wvw since 2 months after headstart and loved it. i was able to put heavy pressure on zergs with glamours and shatters, but then all the nerfs happened and we were duelists only. all out wvw and group play traits and skills have been nerfed to the ground so all we got left is veil,portal,tw.
im frustrated in wvw. it is horrible to be able to only tag and not even tag well and also not kill. on my necro i am a threat but on my mes after veil there is nothing left. everything got nerfed.
yes, i get the duelist part, but in every mmo and even the ones im beta testing atm, every class has the opportunity to spec for group fights and is not just stuck with a 1v1 class.
the way anet devs talked about mes today was very disrespectful and sounded more like bullies making fun of the people that chose mesmers to be honest.
every class should be viable in wvw or at least have a traitline that specializes in it. thieves, rangers and mes need such a traitline.
buffing mantras is not gonna help. the gw1 mes had it right, gw2 mes needs something like hexes back.
The absolute saddest part for me is that confounding suggestions + chaos storm was a step in the right direction. I actually felt I could do something other than veil + null field in WvW. But it was a mistake and it will be taken away.
I just don’t understand the decision not even pay cursory consideration to WvW balance. It’s not like GW2 has become a legitimate e-sport, so this absolute focus on sPvP is completely astounding.
I don’t think you want to run the torch as a commander, because stealthing can sometimes detract from you main job which is having people follow you.
The cooldown on illusion of life is absurd and there are better utilities out there, you’re better off leaving that to warrior banners. Also retaliation does not proc if the attack doesn’t hit i.e. it gets blocked or reflected so I don’t think you will be doing much retal damage while mimic is up.
I normally don’t bother to discuss these kind of threads, but I see a lot of people voting to nerf retaliation. Being guardian from day one, I can say that retaliation is one of the few points we have in our advantage.
What you mean besides one of the best AoE stability classes in the game? Besides being one of the AoE condition cleansing classes in the game? Despite having the best survivability in the game?
To the couple of people that are complaining that Ret is the counter to AoE, that is a mechanic that should be removed anyway, particularly if you want to discourage blobbing (as many people including Anet want to do).
Great fights with BFD on sor bl tonight! At least you didnt build siege like BG when they had equal to or maybe even more numbers than us later into the night.
PS. Yes I’m the charr with the bright blue hair leaping into your zerg. /sit
Oh noes, the nasty BG used the game mechanics!
Also quite ironic considering y’all retreated into bay whenever we pushed out earlier on.
Thanks I wasn’t sure about that; I still like having the 25 point minor trait in dueling, but the other 5 points might be better off dumped into Chaos for extra condition damage.
. From the build editor I’m seeing something like 2200 power, 1500 toughness, and 1150 vitality, which should be enough to stay alive with.
That feels a bit squishy to me. I know earlier you have said that when you’re going down so is the rest of your group but consider this; if you hadn’t gone down then perhaps 5-10 of the enemy wouldn’t have rallied and been back in the fight which was enough to tip the battle in favour of the enemy.
It depends on who you’re following but part of the BG meta during NA/OCX is moving through the opposition and into their back line. If you’re going to be that squishy then you have to be spot on with your positioning. Also one thing worth remembering is that you can’t out play a choke. Sometimes you just have to rush them.
The idea behind this build is a front liner with a heap of survivability that is also providing support to allies. Mantra of concentration to provide stability/stunbreak when guardian stability is down. Restorative mantras to help with the AoE healing.
Basic play style is to dodge your way through the enemy zerg leaving plenty of clones to die and spread AoE conditions. Should have plenty of vigor uptime and the clone generation staff and scepter should also help. Null field is pretty much always wanted. I tend to switch mimic out for veil when it’s called for but mimic + stability is also great for going toe to toe with the zerg and throwing their projectiles back in their faces.
Auto attacks are often on 0.5s. If you get 10 people for 2 seconds that’s 8000 damage just from the 20 domination trait. The 20 domination trait makes your glamours work like a curtain so if they’re in the middle of a battle field there’s a good chance they’ll be running back and forth over it adding more damage. Also glamours are good in an of themselves, this is a bonus. The minor traits in Domination also work well with the staff 5.
That said it’s part of a whole. Like I said in my first post your build seems confused, if you want to build around condi dmg then the glamour on confusions is just part of it.
Mesmers in the zerg are best played as a support class. Ethereal fields are awesome for blasting because AoE Chaos Armor is very nice. I also quite enjoy running a front line mantra build which is great for dropping clones that spread conditions on death everywhere.
If you are going to encourage all guilds of a server to run tagless, don’t complain about having lousy coverage in 2-3 months. Without tags, new players can’t learn whats going on, and you will eventually kill your server without fresh blood to counter the attrition.
JQ has had the most numerous pugs since this game has started, and I think its a major reason they stay in Tier 1 regardless of what guilds come and go. More recently BG has upped the pug numbers since the Teq kill and I think that also shows.
Following that tag is the first thing you learn how to do when you join WvW the first time (they are trained to do it in PvE). Then skill and TS and builds and scouting and manning siege come later. Seems to me guilds sacrifice the long term health of the game for short term “the fights are better”.
But the nice thing about WvW, is we can play it any way we want to.
Don’t completely discount the confusion from glamours in a condition build. 20 into Dom isn’t AoE capped, and with 215 dmg per stack across a large group when they’re probably spamming their auto attack it adds up to a reasonable amount of condition pressure. That said if you want to go condition damage I see 10 Chaos (Debilitating Dissipation) as a prerequisite. The block on scepter 2 is also going to completely ruin someone’s day if you’re condition damage. Another thing you might like to consider is Sigil of Torment on GS.
Just want to give a big shout out to every one involved with the 3 way battle in SM last night during the start of Oceanic. There was much fun and epic battles moving up and down through SM. Things were lovely until nasty JQ went and ninjaed our tier 3 Aldons while SoR took SM off us.
This is incorrect. While admittedly playing other classes are better at specific things saying a ranger is useless is wrong. When specced correctly they have plenty of survivability, heaps of aoe immobilize, and one of the most dependable vulnerability stacks in the game.
My 2 cents:
1) & 2) The build seems confused between power and condi damage you need to decide on that yourself. If you decide to go power then there’s little point in putting 20 into domination as the confusion won’t be worth anything in terms of damage. If you want to run conditions then you need a way of constantly reapplying them to beat the cleanses. 10 into chaos with debilitating dissipation is a good way to go.
3) I’ve never noticed the lack of it personally
4) I almost always run Sigil of Stamina. For my Scepter I have Sigil of Corruption which I switch out for one with Sigil of Torment when I reach 25 stacks (torment hits hard if you are running condi dmg)
5) You can get Dazzling Glamour and Blinding Befuddlement with just 20 into Illusions.
If you are looking at condition damage you may need to look at other options than the GS. The staff is a superb support weapon in the zerg.
I have heard that people have had a lot of success using a hybrid phantasm/glamour build similar to what Kelthien mentioned. Personally I’m full condi damage and I either run a full glamour build (20/0/10/20/20) or a front line clone generation/mantra build (0/30/20/20/0)
Edit:
If you are going into condition dmg then the extra 2s on glamours works well with confusing enchantments as the zergs tend to either circle around one another or move through each other in roughly the same spot, and you will be reapplying confusion each time a person moves through the field. Having the fields up for longer is also good to allow more blast finishers for the wonderful purple bubble.
The counterplay to, for example, a permastealth build is to spam AOE, ideally AOE that can apply conditions and attack where you guess that your opponent is. That is not a fun way to play and brings down the overall enjoyment of the game for the non-broken build significantly
Get off your high horse. Just because you don’t like the counter play that doesn’t make a build broken.
Sounds like your biggest complaints are against classes that have stealth (mesmer, theif seem to be the focus). Perhaps you would like to go play carebears online? Stealth is a core mechanic of many mmos so you might have better luck elsewhere.
Wow the hubris of the OP is absolutely staggering. Apparently he/she get’s to decide what is and is not a fun build. If you don’t meet that standard (regardless of the skill level required of your build) bam, he rage quits.
As mentioned though, go for it. Just proves you are a bad and gives us free bags.
And you conveniently ignored my second point, which is that oceanic and SEA don’t have the population to spread out anyway, and they are a big part of what drives the coverage for Tier 1. Feel free to keep trucking along with your myopic view though, which anet will thankfully keep ignoring.
That’s apples and oranges. The OP is about T1 server players having the possibility of transferring to a lower tier server for free. What you are referring to is the exact opposite.
No it’s not. They had the opportunity to do that during the aforementioned period. They didn’t until Condemned stopped playing. Then the non NA guilds found that their membership atrophied because there was no competition in lower tiers, and everyone congregated around a few servers and you ended up in the same situation with people gravitating to a few servers. The server names have changed (SBI, HoD, ET, and SoS have all fallen by the wayside) but little else has.
The Oceanic and SEA populations are such that they can’t support more than a couple of servers, and those servers that get picked will always end up as the Tier 1s. If we wanted small scale battles then we’d do sPvP, but we want GvG so we concentrate our numbers so we have enough to have both allies and people to fight.
Trying to change that is kitten ing into the wind.
This is a good idea IMO but there is no way Anet will sacrifice the cash cow that are server transfers. It’s money out of thin air for them. Balance be kitten ed.
No it’s not, and it’s empirically proven to boot. During the first months of play there were free transfers for all and it did nothing for balance. In fact it was worse than the current situation because the fairweathers all went to whoever was winning.
Yes sadly we have been lacking in the tactics dept lately I’ve also noticed, But you also have to remember when a server gets more pvers than W3ers in wvw at times this will happen. But thank you for the constructive criticism, whether its asked for or not it normally makes us a better server/opponent.
Luckily we have Mez to overcome this deficiency. He’s so fantastic in the tactics department that none of the WvW guilds want him because he’s too op.
@Bunda It seems to me when you talk about WvW, you’re talking about roaming, because terms of ZvZ or GvG then chaos armor is very very good (in practice not just on paper).
For a ZvZ condition build the staff is perfectly fine as primary weapon, and does not require PU to be effective.
In WvW, cc is probably the most important skill, and what staff is (mostly) missing. So while you should play however you like (especially in PvE, where many builds work fine), my advice for WvW is this: learn to love the main hand sword, followed by greatsword, pistol, torch, scepter and focus. Staff is unfortunately a bit niche in WvW.
Wrong. The vast majority of WvW condition/support builds run staff because it is a very good support weapon. The auto attack is reasonable, and it has an ethereal field which can be blasted for chaos armor, as well as a self chaos armor and a stun break (that also provides chaos armor if you use it in an ethereal field). Chaos armor is absolutely amazing.
I think they should just get rid of charging for transfers completely. I think they’d make a lot more money if they just introduced piles of new skins and other goodies that would beef up the WvW experience itself.
Let people transfer as much as they want, where they want until they find the server they feel the most comfortable with.
They tried that already during launch. All the tailcoat riders jumped on HoD and ET. And everyone was on these forums begging for paid transfers to end.
We transferred out of T1 when TA broke up due to the exact same whinging about balance, and the lack of competition during OCX (combined with culling issues) resulted in the guild leaving GW2.
Expecting non NA to basically roll the dice in a lottery is not the way to solve this issue.
Here’s the thing (coming from a fellow kiwi) , no matter where you go NZ is a dead spot. Prime time begins just as the PST players are logging off (7pm NZ it 10pm PST) and it’s before the Aussie and SEA forces get on. That said there seem to be plenty of players still on on both Blackgate and Jade Quarry, and to a lesser extent SoR, when I jump on so if you come to 1 of the big 3 you’ll have no probs getting fights.
Shameless plug: KnT are still recruiting Oceanics, and we have a decent group of Kiwis. They’re mostly horrible jafas but there’s at least one totally awesome South Islander.
I have had quite a folks messaging in Asian Prime about BG’s absence so I thought I’d do a PSA. Apologies to the people if this is off topic:
1. BG SEA is fine even though BG garrison and EB keep was taken. New PVE content and it’s really quite good. Same thing happened last year SBI/JQ time. So the Rallians are keeping it cautious for the next few days and not presuming anything.
2. BG pushed out at 12am (GMT+8) capturing SOR garrison and pushing BG back to high PPT.
3. Epic fight at JQ BAY with Tarkus (?), Omegas and the massive JQ army. Awesome awesome fun.
4. Was great to see Waha on at 12am at JQ. We were really happy. /notroll.
FW
The dead time between NA and OCX really hit us hard I believe. On EBG coming in to the beginning of Australian prime time we rallied (with 3 omegas) and took back our side of the map and then took SM off JQ and pushed the JQ zerg back to their keep. Pretty sure a call went out on JQ at that point because they came out with renewed vigor and there were many fun fights around SM
I run full dire, and if I’m running with a guild group I run a full glamour spec 20/0/10/20/20
If I’m in a mostly pug group I use a tanky clone spamming build 0/30/20/20/0 with mantra heal, mantra of concentration, null field, and mimic. With sigil of stamina you can just dodge around the zerg and have your clone deaths tag things up and apply aoe conditions.
@Ansau: It’s very situational. Being in melee is not the problem per se, it’s all about positioning. If you’re with the commander and you’re hitting BF on the opposing back line then all well and good, but if your in the middle of a hammer train or you get stuck on the other side of the zerg from your commander then you’re gonna have a bad time.
As pyro says scepter just brings more to the table if you’re rocking dire. The auto attack is nice for dropping clones on the zerg for debilitating dissipation, and the block is great for running through chokes.
At the moment I’m switching between a full glamour build when running with guild groups and 0/30/20/20/0 when with mostly pugs. For the pug build I normally run mantra of concentration, null field, and after reading this I’ve just switched the third uti to mimic. Much fun is being had.
Now… I am EU player in NA server and I am not in NA servers to PvD I am here because my old guild from GW1 and even it it disband few months ago SoR is my home server like it to you or not. I am not going any other server because you think NA has no place for EU guilds or players. But let me ask why EU has to be separated from NA servers? Correct me if im wrong but the servers from NA and EU are in the same country?
Also, you make it sound like if IRON was the first EU guild that transfer from EU servers to NA servers… like if there was not RG and other guilds before from EU in NA servers before?
But hey, good luck with your way of thinking and selective memory I know now what guild in my own server im not welcome to join now.
There have been EU on the NA servers since launch. HoD had Ginnunga, and I’m pretty sure ET had an EU guild as well. DEYs also transferred to BG fairly early on in the game
Mez is a good player and I’m happy he’s on BG instead of somewhere else. Yes, he can complain a fair amount, argue with militia and commanders, criticizes harshly, etc. But he’s still a good player that isn’t shy to communicate on map chat. Unlike many players also, he thinks about what he should be doing and adapts to the circumstances, not blindly follows the commander.
Also the way he criticizes is far more productive than what some people do, because he will point out what he thinks was done wrong and what should’ve been done instead. Far more productive than the common criticism that is calling someone a “kitten”.
Finally don’t ask someone to leave unless you are willing to pay for the transfer. Are you?
Wrong on all counts. But then not surprising when you’re in the same boat as Mez.
Asura are mammals, so they mate and give birth to live young the same way humans do.
Being a mammal has precisely nothing to do with giving birth to live young. A mammal is a creature that produces milk from mammary glands (note the common word root).
mam·mal [mam-uhl] Show IPA
noun
any vertebrate of the class Mammalia, having the body more or less covered with hair, nourishing the young with milk from the mammary glands, and, with the exception of the egg-laying monotremes, giving birth to live young.
Giving live birth is completely incidental.
The word “mammal” is modern, from the scientific name Mammalia coined by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, derived from the Latin mamma (“teat, pap”). All female mammals nurse their young with milk, which is secreted from special glands, the mammary glands
